Lighting the Human Figure

Patroklos

I have for some while been unhappy with the rendered quality of the human skin.

I have mostly used HDR's as lighting - my computer has no cuda cores so rendering can be a rather drawn out affair.

Just now I have decided to do a quick reference render of the various human mats so that I can refer to these prior to setting up a scene for rendering. For speed and simplicity I decided to use the camera headlight. I am more than surprised at the huge increase in the detail visible in these renders, they are photographic quality, and some take only a matter of minutes to complete.

So, I would be greatful for advice on how to transfer some of this detail and speed to to the rendering of a scene.

 

 

Doc Acme

Kind of hard to tell with those really extreme CU's, but lighting does have everything to do with how anything looks.  Using the Headlight though isn't really the answer.  You'll get much more useful feel for a surface from side & even back lighting.  That's why the ol' basic 3 point lighting set up (Key, fill & back) is generally a good starting point, but I generally use a good HDR. 

That being said, being hampered by lack of hardward might not have many options to get around frankly.  I suffered from the same affliction for many years so I do feel your pain.  Couldn't even enable Iray for more than a couple minute peek at what could be; had to render with CPU only. 

 

Patroklos

mdwhitney_17f0196a22 said:

Kind of hard to tell with those really extreme CU's, but lighting does have everything to do with how anything looks.  Using the Headlight though isn't really the answer.  You'll get much more useful feel for a surface from side & even back lighting.  That's why the ol' basic 3 point lighting set up (Key, fill & back) is generally a good starting point, but I generally use a good HDR. 

That being said, being hampered by lack of hardward might not have many options to get around frankly.  I suffered from the same affliction for many years so I do feel your pain.  Couldn't even enable Iray for more than a couple minute peek at what could be; had to render with CPU only. 

 

Thank you for your reply. I generally do not do extreme close ups, normal portraits and whole body shots.

I would like to know how others here get high quality results in reasonable time using a pc with no cuda cores. Is it possible?

JonnyRay

I would start with PRO-Studio HDR Lighting System. This is my "go to" lighting whenever I want to make a portrait style render (like the one below). The HDRI images are hand created to mimic the 3-point system that MDWhitney mentioned.

Since they are HDRI, they won't have quite as much specular light however, so if you REALLY want to go the next step, adding some spot lights may be worthwhile too. In my signature, I have a link to an old tutorial I wrote about setting up a 3-light rig. Although it was based on 3Delight, the principals are the same.

For that matter, for people/portrait renders, learning how photographers setup lighting for a portrait shoot and figuring out how to mimic that in Daz Studio would also be useful.I have always loved lighting in 3D; so I'd be happy to answer specific questions.

All of that said, I've also seen others use this paraphrased quote: "High quality ... Fast ... Cheap ... you can pick 2."

Patroklos

Thank you, this is very interesting